Psyche
by SilhouetteInWords
Summary: Basically, this is my idea of the kind of person Harry would likely have been given the childhood experience we know he had. Everyone is pretty much the same although as Harry deviate more and more from canon, he will of course effect those around him. Starts at the end of the first book. Updates are likely to be sporadic. Desperately needs a beta.
1. Prologue

**Introduction**

Cold Flooded his body as Harry swallowed. For a moment he stood completely still, evaluating the sensation for potential harm, before stepping quickly into the flames and then just as quickly out the other side. The cold was already fading - thank god - it was an unpleasant sensation, not because it hurt, although it did a little, but because it was rather invasive.

Harry relaxed as he, for good measure, put another step between himself and the black fire. He hadn't really noticed how tense he was until he left Hermione behind. It wasn't her fault, she wasn't a bad person, he'd just never really been comfortable around other people, a life time of not being touched unless you were being hit could do that to a person. Between the feeling of the tension and the potion leaving his body, it took Harry a moment to look around the room.

Immediately he felt the tension return. There was someone in the room – and it wasn't Snape. It wasn't even Voldemort.

It was Quirrell.

He was standing with his back to Harry, and although he was staring into a mirror, he didn't appear to be seeing Harry in it. Although with this particular mirror, that probably wasn't surprising.

Harry didn't move. Although Ron and Hermione had seemed to feel that stopping Snape from stealing the stone was obviously and intuitively the thing to do, they'd declined to share how this was supposed to work up close and personal.

Despite what Hermione seemed to think, Harry knew he wasn't a "great wizard", what he was was a child, and not even a particularly studious one at that, who had just barely one year's worth of magical education to his name. Honestly, he'd never have thought for a moment this would actually _work,_ surely someone like Dumbledore, if even half of what people had said about him was true, cold produce protections that were more well, _child proof._ He'd imagined them getting held down by a Cerberus, or trapped in an enchantment, or _something_ ; losing a great deal of house points, getting one hell of a slap on the wrist and being sent home. Somehow, he hadn't imagined them getting expelled. Dumbledore hadn't made any particular effort to hide what was going on and had even gone so far as to turn warning them away from the third-floor corridor into a joke.

Yet, to his growing consternation, Hermione had managed to think her way through most of the "protections" and the others had been so blindingly obvious as to constitute little more than a magical obstacle course.

Which was all well and good, but that still left Harry in a room with an adult wizard who seemed to be in the middle of a heist. Experimentally, Harry took a step backwards, but was immediately met with a scorching heat that strongly encouraged him to revise his plan to simple walk back through the flames.

Great, so he couldn't get out.

It was at this point that a small part of Harry's mind that had been politely trying to get his attention since his shoddy eyes first focused on the purple turban in front of him made itself more forcibly know with the suggestion that this would be an opportune moment to _panic_.

Walking as quietly as he could, Harry crossed to the nearest pillar and stepped behind it.

He couldn't get out – deep (quiet) breath – but that wasn't to say Quirrell couldn't. All he had to do was remain undetected until Quirrell left and then he could revert back the being-found-wrist-slapping-home plan and tell the others whatever heroic Boy-Who-Lived _esque_ story would keep them from turning on him.

Harry had been the unpopular kid before. He wasn't going to let it happen again.

"This mirror is the key to finding the Stone," Quirrell's voice broke the silence, causing Harry's entire body to freeze instinctively.

"Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this…but he's in London…I'll be far away by the time he gets back," Harry frowned as the monologue continued, on the one hand, Quirrell wasn't stuttering, which added a kind of competence to his image that Harry wouldn't have previously attributed to him, on the other, he was talking out loud…to himself.

"I see the Stone…I'm presenting it to my master…but where is it?"

It was at this point that the penny dropped for Harry. That was actually quite cleaver. Where or however the stone was hidden, only someone who wanted nothing more than to find it would see its location in the mirror. Although actually, what person would ever fulfil that criteria? People wanted things like love and security and gratification. Sure, the stone could be a means to that end but from the sound of it that wouldn't cut it.

Yet…surely there were spells and potions that could…modify a person's desires. Somehow this idea didn't really sit right with Harry, as though he was missing a step in a math problem, but now was not the time to be chasing stray neurons that may or may not actually have something to offer.

"We are not alone," a voice, a terribly familiar voice suddenly broke the silence left in the wake of Quirrell's muttering.

Harry's breath hitched. He knew that voice. He _knew_ that voice. So powerful was the sense of familiarity that Harry was temporarily distracted, thus when he returned to himself it was to the sense that an indefinite portion of time has passed, and the frail, frigid silence of the hunter.

" _Incarcerous!"_ Ropes burst out of thin air and bound Harry arms to his torso. It wasn't until he attempted to take a step and found he couldn't move his legs that he noticed the cords binding those too.

Harry's head actually bounced when he hit the stone floor and his last though before losing consciousness was that that couldn't be good.

When Harry awoke, he was lying face up on the floor watching Quirrell attempt some form of magic too advanced for Harry to even identify on the still stoically resisting mirror. His only clue as to how much time had passed was Quirrell's increasingly frazzled appearance.

"The boy is awake."

That voice. It was him. The same instinct that let him feel his way through the air on his Nimbus was telling him that that voice was _him!_ Quirrell however speared him only a glance before going back to his magic, and Harry wisely elected not to draw further attention to himself.

"Master, Dumbledore will be returning soon…" the suggestion was obvious and unwelcome to Harry's ears.

"If you cannot find it kill the boy and retreat," the voice replied after a moment.

Quirrell turned to Harry and it was at this moment that Harry realised he was going to die tonight. No matter how this ended it didn't involve him living to get his exam results back. The realisation filled him with an odd sense of disappointment. Harry had always been reasonably comfortable with the idea of his own death, frequent experiences with starvation and broken bones had forced him to accustom himself to the idea that one day, Harry Potter's luck would run out, but…he'd only just….and he'd wanted to….

"Why'd you come to my house that night?" he asked. It wasn't really so important, it was just another of the stray neurons that had let him know almost a year ago while sitting eating soup in the Leaky Caldron, that something didn't make sense. Why him? Why in person? What was so special about him?

"Dumbledore didn't tell you?" the voice replied, and Harry could hear the mocking in it.

"No," he answered a moment later.

"Then why should I?" the voice replied. The tone was curious, as though he was genuinely interested in what reasons Harry would come up with?

"Because I'm going to die tonight anyway," Harry answered, with as little inflection as he could manage, "and because I know how the mirror works…and because it costs you nothing to tell me…"

He trailed off, playing the pity card was probably a bit weak. His chances of getting any pity here were pretty low.

"There was a prophecy about us…." The voice said, almost distractedly, and Harry had the same odd sense of being x-rayed that Snape often gave him. The feeling lasted only a moment before Quirrell blinked and raised his wand. Harry saw his lips move but never heard the incantation.

Harry lowered his arm and stared at the fist sized red gem in Quirrell's hand. He'd just…he'd looked into the mirror and the stone had fallen into his pocket…Quirrell had unbound him…he remembered all of this, but it was all…it was like…

"Imperious Curse," Quirrell supplied helpfully, smirking down at him. Harry had never heard of it, but the context gave him a good idea of what it did.

Quirrell was still standing there, looking at him, an odd, almost regretful look in his eyes. Oh, right. Time to die. Harry took a deep breath and raised his chin just a little.

"Master, I don't know the curse…" Quirrell murmured, colouring slightly.

"Then strangle him," the voice replied, sounding disgusted.

Quirrell's hands shot out and grasped Harry's neck, his own rising to them instinctively in an attempt to free himself. But then wouldn't work.

The force with which Quirrell grabbed him knocked them both to the ground and Harry felt his head collide with the stone for the second time that night. Fighting to relax, Harry closed his eyes, ignoring the splitting pain radiating through his skull and grasped Quirrell's forearms tightly, determined to die with at least a little dignity.

Suddenly a scream rang through the room and Quirrell pulled away, Harry's death grip on his arms pulling the boy up with him. Harry opened his eyes to see Quirrell staring at his blistered palms before throwing Harry bodily from him.

"Master my h-"

 _CRASH!_

Harry collided with the mirror, which bounced against the wall behind it before falling forwards. Harry had just enough time to knowledge how idiotic the situation was before both Harry and his unfortunate professor were crushed beneath it.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Something gold was glinting just above him. A snitch. It was floating in a sea of white clouds. No wait. It wasn't the Snitch at all. It was a pair of glasses.

How strange.

Harry blinked a few times, his bruised mind gearing tiredly back up and the smiling face of Albus Dumbledore swam into view above him.

"Good afternoon, Harry," said Dumbledore.

Harry struggled to sit up. The level of power Dumbledore had over his life had not been lost on Harry. From having had possession of his Gringotts key, to being entirely responsible for his placement with the Dursleys, to having handled his reintroduction to the wizarding world…no, Harry was under no illusions about who was in control of his life. Not to mention his education.

That first conversation with Hagrid had revealed a great deal of interesting information. But then really, any conversation that started with 'you're a wizard' was bound to.

"Hello, sir," Harry said cautiously.

"You are not in trouble, Harry," Dumbledore ventured after a moments silent observation.

"Oh." Harry said, struggling to establish his accepted heroic role in the situation.

"Sir, the stone-"

"Professor Quirrell does not have the stone, Harry," Dumbledore interrupted.

"Oh," Harry said again, "is he alright, sir?"

"I'm afraid that between the injuries sustained from you and the trauma of Voldemort's exit when he detected my approach, Professor Quirrell is no longer with us," Dumbledore said carefully.

Harry swallowed but nodded.

"You got Hermione's owl?" he asked.

"We must have crossed in mid-air. No sooner had I reached London then it became clear to me that the place I should be was the one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull you one from under the mirror."

Harry nodded, although something about that image didn't sit right. Surely Dumbledore did not use a broom to get to and from London every time he had work there, especially if the Minister 'peppered' him with owls as Hagrid said. Harry did not voice his doubt however.

"Where is the stone now sir?" Harry asked, then immediately realised how presumptuous that sounded, "I mean to say…is it safe sir?" he corrected lamely.

"The stone has been destroyed, my dear boy," Dumbledore said, smiling gently. That fact that Harry knew this expression was designed to put him at ease in no way effected its capacity to do so.

"But what about Mr Flamel sir?" Harry asked.

"Oh, you know about Nicholas?" said Dumbledore, sounding quite delighted.

"You did do the thing properly, didn't you? Well Nicholas and I have had a little chat and agreed it's all for the best."

"Oh," Harry said for the third time, beginning to feel rather stupid. He had an opportunity to talk to Dumbledore, he should be making use of it.

"Sir, I was wondering…all year I've been under the impression that Professor Snape was trying to kill me during my first quidditch match but in light of recent events…" he trailed off awkwardly, unsure how to finish his question.

"Professor Snape was attempting to save you, Harry," Dumbledore stated calmly.

"Oh," Harry said again, mentally chastising himself even as he said it, "Um, would you thank him for me?" he said, mentally shuddering at the thought of trying to do so himself.

"I shall pass on your gratitude."

"Speaking of gratitude," Harry began, sure this was the best segway he was likely to get, "I was wondering, was it you who gave me the cloak, sir?"

"Ah – your father happened to leave it in my possession and I thought you might like it."

"Thank you, sir," Harry said, smiling a little.

"You're quite welcome, my dear boy," Dumbledore told him, smiling back brightly. Harry turned a little unsure if there were any other subject he really wanted to broach with the headmaster. His eyes feel on the collection of sweets adorning the end of his bed.

"Tokens from your friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, seeing his confused expression, "I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a lavatory seat," Harry sorted, remembering the conversation at Kings Cross, "I see they were correct in thinking it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey however, felt in might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it."

"How long have I been in here sir," Harry asked.

"Three days," Harry nodded, suddenly remembering what Voldemort had told him about the prophecy.

"Sir…you made it sound before…like you were friends with my parents…I was wondering if you could tell me if there was any particular reason Vol- I mean You-Know-Who tried to kill them," Harry felt it best not to reveal that he'd already asked Voldemort the same question.

"Alas my boy, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day…put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older…I know you hate to hear this…when you are ready, you will know."

Trying not to show how incredibly unimpressed he was with that answer, Harry nodded.

"And sir?" he asked timidly. Dumbledore smiled encouragingly.

"Why did Quirrell's hands burn when he touched me?" Dumbledore seemed delighted by this question.

"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realise that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign… to have been loved so deeply, even if the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch someone marked by something so good."

Harry nodded again, unable to summon any verbal response to this blatant load of tripe.

The rest of the year passed in something of a blur for Harry, Ron and Hermione seemed suitably impressed by his story of trying to use the body bind Hermione had demonstrated, on Quirrell and then being cursed and forced to retrieve the stone from the mirror. Hagrid shook the windows in the hospital wing with his sobs before giving Harry a photo album that Harry was waiting for a time when he was alone to look at.

The end of term feast had been horrible. It had been nice to see all his housemates so happy and the look on Malfoy's face had been very gratifying, but that did not change the fact that Professor Dumbledore had _stolen_ the house cup from Slytherin by awarding him and his friends hundreds of points after the school year had technically ended for _breaking the rules._ It didn't escape Harry that Slytherin had also been about to set some sort of a record that they had apparently been working on for _seven years_ and the gutted expression of many of the older Slytherins wasn't something Harry was likely to forget soon. Especially given the fact that they probably all blamed him for what Dumbledore had done. Seriously, it was like Dumbledore _wanted_ them to hate him.

However, compassion was a commodity that was fast disappearing behind him. Harry had already set a date with Ron and Hermione two weeks into August to all go shopping for school supplies in Diagonally, something that had been enthusiastically, – Mr Weasley – politely, – the Grangers – and extremely rudely – the Dursleys – agreed to by everyone's parents before departing King's Cross.

Which left Harry six weeks before he would see everyone again. On the one hand this meant six weeks alone with the Dursleys, which Harry wasn't excited about, but on the other, this would be the first time Harry would have to himself since September.

He really did have some thinking to do.

Firstly, there was a prophecy about him and Voldemort, of which Dumbledore knew, but refused to tell Harry until he was 'ready' which basically meant until Dumbledore wanted to. Which really raised more questions than it answered. Firstly, this meant that prophecies were an actual thing. It was actually possible to predict the future. This in turn called into question the idea of free will but Harry chose to close down that particular line of speculation for the moment. What he really needed was concrete information about the field, which could be gotten at _Flourish and Blots_ presumably however he'd rather not do so while he had everyone staring over his shoulder, especially as he wasn't supposed to know about this and Hermione's respect for authority figures bordered on the fanatical.

But as he'd already told Uncle Vernon he'd be going school shopping in August, he couldn't get a lift. This left him sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night and trying to get to London on his own, a prospect Harry was not thrilled by. No, he'd try sending an owl to the shop first and see if anything could be arranged that way.

However, to return to the prophecy in question, well, all he really knew about it was that it had resulted in Voldemort attempting to kill him, which wasn't promising. However, a prophecy presumably had to come from somewhere, if it was made by someone, he might be able to find out who or find a record of it somehow.

Really, he needed more information before he could do anything.

Secondly, was the issue of not being allowed to do magic outside of school. It went without saying that the Dursleys must not find out about this rule, but Harry would also really like to know how his magic was detected so that, who was he kidding, he could find a way to circumvent it. After all, what was the point of being a wizard if your cousin could still beat you up just to pass the time.

That however, would also require books.

Shifting in the back seat of the Dursley's car to supress his impatience, Harry made a mental note to write to Flourish and Blots the moment he got home.

Thirdly, was Dumbledore's monopoly on his life, not only was it making him incredibly uncomfortable…

Well, actually that was it. It was making him incredibly uncomfortable. However again this required information. There was apparently a Ministry of Magic, but the last thing Harry wanted to do was go bumbling about without understanding the law and systems by which the Ministry presumably ran.

Finally, Harry thought as they pulled into Privat Drive, there was the photo album he'd been avoiding since Hagrid gave it to him.

"Get out boy!" Uncle Vernon snarled the moment the car stopped, obediently, Harry opened the car door and began manoeuvring Hedwig's cage and his broom out after him. By the time he straitened, Uncle Vernon was already at the door with his trunk, which was worryingly nice of him.

Harry reached the front door himself just in time to see his uncle shove his trunk into his old cupboard. The reddening man turned to smile at him nastily.

"The broom, freak."

Wordlessly, Harry handed it over and watched as his uncle snapped a padlock on the door.

"Now the bird."

Panic flooded Harry's chest but as much as he liked Hedwig, there was no way he was going to die for an owl. Harry swallowed and handed over her cage however to his relief, his uncle only snapped a second padlock onto her cage before handing it back.

It was in a deep silence that Harry climbed the stairs and closed the door to his room.

Well, home at last.

He set Hedwig on his desk and examined the lock. It was extremely generic, the kind one could buy at a supermarket which was probably where Uncle Vernon had gotten it.

Sighing, Harry began searching the mounds of Dudley's old junk that decorated the majority of his room for something that could be used to pick it. Wires ideally.

It took him twenty minutes to give up and admit he needed some of Aunt Petunia's hair pins and a further ten to establish that it was safe to sneak into her and Vernon's room to steal them.

After a fruitless night of trying, Harry rose the early next morning, stole an apple for breakfast and renewed his attempts. It was almost lunch time when he finally heard the _click_.

Hardly daring to breath, Harry lifted the lock gently away from the cage like some sort of wild animal that would latch back on if he startled it, and placed it delicately on the table, Hedwig hooted and shuffled towards the cage door, but Harry merely shushed her. No way he was letting her out in broad daylight. No, what he needed right now was a plan.

The most important thing would be to make sure his Uncle never found out, which either meant putting the lock back on and picking it every time he wanted to open the cage or getting another lock from the supermarket. As he didn't have any money, at least not muggle money, he'd have to steal it.

Later that afternoon found one eleven-year-old Harry Potter walking out of Costcutter with two padlocks, replete with the necessary keys, tucked into his underwear. At the last moment he'd remembered he'd need one for the lock on his cupboard too. Luckily, he wasn't bothered beyond a squealing from a fleeing Dudley on his way back to his room as he wasn't entirely sure he wasn't limping. He'd never really appreciated how many corners a padlock had before.

Quickly snapping the first padlock onto an indignant Hedwig's cage Harry stashed the other, along with the open one and the lone key in a corner under his bed. He'd need a better hiding spot for them soon but right now he was eager to write his letter in case he was called down to make dinner. Tearing a page out of one of the old school notebooks Dudley had never so much as touched, Harry began to write:

 _To the proprietors and employees of Flourish and Blots_

 _As a young wizard raised by muggles I found your shop to be an invaluable source of information while shopping for my first-year text books, and I am writing to enquire whether it might be possible to order more extracurricular texts by owl so that I may continue to enjoy them over the summer Holidays. The subjects in which I am interested are:_

 _prophecies, their origins and how they are dealt with by wizarding society:_

 _wizarding law and government, most specifically relating to children:_

 _and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, relating to the events of the war which killed my parents and the reasons for it:_

 _Any help you could offer me would be most appreciated._

 _Your Sincerely_

 _Harry James Potter_

Yes, that sounded appropriately formal. The last one was mainly so he could work in the bit about his parents, which he worried might be laying it on a little thick, but if he had to put up with being accosted every time he went shopping, he might as well name drop himself once in a while. It wasn't like he was being rude. At least he hoped not.

Removing a pair of scissors, tag still attached, from a pencil case which also still had its tag attached, Harry trimmed off the frayed edge the spiral binding had left and had just finished folding the letter as Ron had showed him when her heard his Aunt's footstep on the stairs. Quickly shoving the letter under his pillow, Harry was halfway to the door when she banged on it.

"Diner!" she shrieked, and Harry relaxed as he heard her turn back towards the hall, "now!"

With one last cursory glance around the room, Harry hurried to follow Petunia Dursley down to the kitchen. It wasn't until he was frying up the sausages that he realised he'd forgotten to mention anything about underage magic. Although now he thought about it, that might not be such a bad thing. He really only had one reason to be interested in that area anyway. He'd just had to wait until he was actually _at_ Diagon Alley.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair, Harry of course not receiving much of it and hurrying upstairs immediately after doing the washing up to let Hedwig out with his letter just as it was getting properly dark. His last though that evening was that if they refused to send books out to him, he'd have to find some way of stealing money. It was much harder to avoid paying for buss fair then it was for padlocks.

Harry was awakened at 4:23am by the sound of a sharp beak rapping against his window. Immediately, Harry leapt up, stumbling over his blanket as he hurried to open the window and cursing himself for not leaving it open before he went to sleep. Hedwig flew in, and he wasted no time removing the package attached to her feet before locking her back in her cage and stumbling back to his bed, package in hand.

Hedwig hooted loudly in indignation, but Harry ignored her, panting as he lay in bed, the package clutched to his chest.

Silence.

Slowly, his breathing stilled.

There was no sound of footsteps.

Far more carefully this time, Harry got back up. He left the package still concealed in his bed and he crossed back to Hedwig's cage and stroked her feathers through the bars. She nipped his fingers rather harder than necessary, but Harry thought that was probably fair considering what she'd been but through in the last forty-eight hours.

After a few more minutes of silence, Harry collected the key to her cage and let his rather grumpy owl out to hunt, this time making sure to leave both his window and the door to her cage open. Shoving some old jeans of Dudley's that he wasn't particularly fond of under the door to hide the light, Harry flicked his light on and collected his parcel from the bed.

It turned out to contain catalogues. Each was in black and white and had the name _Flourish and Blots_ printed in large loopy letters across the front under the title. There were three and each was printed on the same thin parchment as the prophet. The first was titled _Everything a Muggleborn Needs to Know_ the second _The Ministry of Magic_ and the last _Hogwarts Electives, Make Your Choice Early._

There was also a letter.

 _Dear Mr Potter_

 _I was delighted to receive your owl and am pleased to inform you we do offer an owl order service for those who are unable to come to the shop in person. I have taken the liberty of sending you several of our catalogues which cover some of the subjects in which you expressed an interest. It's always encouraging to see students looking into their electives before actually choosing them as the choices you make can drastically affect the jobs you can apply for later on._

 _I wasn't entirely sure what to send you regarding that war as we don't actually have a catalogue devoted to it. Some of the information in the one for muggleborns might be helpful but personally I would suggest_ The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts _as it has a good section about You-Know-Who and is generally cited as the most accurate in relation to your story._

 _Please feel free to write a list of any titles that interest you by return owl and we will send them to you directly. You can retain a bill with us of up to one hundred galleons for up to a year, before it has to be paid off._

 _Yours with the best of wished_

 _Nicholas Moon_

 _P.S. – it was an honour to_

Harry smiled at the scribbled-out post script. Being thanked by strangers for defeating Voldemort had always made him feel awkward, and it was nice to see someone making an effort to reign in their enthusiasm, even if only as a second thought. He then turned his attention to the catalogues.

The first thing he noted was that they were nothing like muggle catalogues. The only pictures where on the front and they were very simple in their design. Instead of the glossy images and eye-catching displays that he was used to, the inside of each was filled with carefully ordered columns listing price, title, authors, and a little about the book. The only variation was in the amount of description the books were given and the categories they were sorted into.

The one for Muggleborns has categories like _Transportation, the Ministry, History,_ and _Life at Hogwarts_ while the Elective catalogue was organised into _Hogwarts Electives, Non-Hogwarts Electives_ and _Masteries_ and then by subjects. The ministry one however looked the most daunting, as it was organised my ministry departments and then by offices and didn't seem to contain a single full sentence but was made up of incredibly complicated entries filled with indents and dot point designed to show under which sub-department, department, office, major department and whatever else each specific employee of the ministry worked, and in which book you could find a description of their job.

It took Harry nearly forty minutes decide to get both the book covering the _Department of Magical Law Enforcement_ and the one on the _Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes_ as both looked like they might contain information relating to underaged magic _._ It was during his search that he made a rather worrying discovery.

There was no department of child services. There wasn't even a department of public services. No wonder Dumbledore had the monopoly on his life, the was actually _no competition._

Trying not to dwell on the social implications of this discovery, Harry wrote down the two books by someone named _Casper Crouch_ that he wanted, before moving onto the other two catalogues. He'd at first been confused by Moon's comments about electives and the subsequent catalogue but a closer look explained the connection. There was an entire subject devoted to predicting the future which he would have the option of taking up in his third year. Relieved at the presumptions Moon had made - there was no reason to imagine the staff and _Flourish and Blots_ reported to Dumbledore, or even that the man would care Harry had lied to him, but a life under Vernon had made Harry secretive and suspicious of authority figures by nature - Harry added the third-year divination text _Unfogging the Future_ by _Cassandra Vablatsky_ to his list as well as the book Moon had recommended. He added a polite salutation and an expression of gratitude around the list and them folded the letter up and hid it under his pillow to send that evening.

By this time, the sun was peaking over the horizon and Hedwig had long ago returned with a dead mouse which she was now digesting with a satisfied air. Harry rose to turn off his light, stretching and cracking his back as he bent down to remove the jeans from under the door. He replaced the lock on Hedwig's cage, she took this with substantially more grace on a full stomach, and retreated back to his bed with his catalogues. He'd yet to give the Muggleborns one any serious attention.

By the time his aunt called him to make breakfast, Harry had decided he would also get _Wizarding Transportation: A Guide and History, A Brief History of Magical Britain,_ and _Hogwarts: A History_ because what his friends didn't know wouldn't make Hermione smug or Ron complain.

Harry's day passed in something of a blur, not least because he was rather tired from having gotten up to early, as his aunt had managed to find a long list of chores that needed to be done, mostly involving tending her garden, and it wasn't until after 'lunch', or piece of bread with lettuce leaf as Harry called it, that he was able to return to his room. After a good couple of hours sleep, Harry eventually found himself once again lying in bed perusing his only real connection to the wizarding world.

Still warry of the suffering brought by the ministry catalogue, Harry this time decided to read up on his electives. It seemed Hogwarts offered five: _Muggle Studies, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, Ancient Runes_ , and _Arithmancy._ The only one that sounded totally useless was _Muggle Studies,_ and _Arithmancy_ sound downright wonderful. It was the first time he'd read words like 'geometry' and 'equation' in relation to magic. Harry had actually liked maths quite a lot at school, it had been one of the few things he was proud of as a child because no matter what the Dursleys said, nothing would change the fact that five and five did not make fifteen (Dudley's answer) and any person with all their fingers would have to agree.

On the other hand, there were dozens of subjects that weren't offered at Hogwarts and half of them actually seemed to be banned or not recognised in Britain. There was:

 _Wizarding Etiquette and Culture – British_ (not recognised)

 _Eastern Wizarding Etiquette and Culture_

 _Asian Wizarding Etiquette and Culture_

 _Obscure Wizarding Cultures_ (not recognised at OWL level, Mastery Available)

 _French_ (not recognised at owl level, Mastery Available)

 _German_ (not recognised at owl level, Mastery Available)

 _Greek_ (not recognised at owl level, Mastery Available)

 _Chinese_ (not recognised at owl level, Mastery Available)

 _Arabic – Urdu_ (not recognised at owl level, Mastery Available)

 _Spanish_ (not recognised at owl level, Mastery Available)

 _Magical Art_ (not recognised)

 _Magical Music_ (not recognised)

 _Magical Medicine_

 _Duelling – British Tradition_

 _Duelling – Eastern Tradition_ (Banned in Britain)

 _Necromancy_ (Banned in Britain)

 _Metamorphic Magic_ (Banned in Britain)

 _Soul Magic_ (Banned in Britain)

 _Dark Curses_ (Banned in Britain)

 _Dark Arts – General_ (Banned in Britain)

 _Healing_

 _Light Magic – General_ (Banned in Britain)

 _Spell Crafting_ (not recognised at owl level, Mastery Available)

 _Goblin History and Culture_

 _Centaur History and Culture_ (not recognised)

 _Elf History and Culture_ (not recognised)

 _Giant History and Culture_ (Banned in Britain)

 _European History of Magic_

 _Asian History of Magic_

 _Middle Eastern History of Magic_ (not recognised)

 _Theology of the Origins of Magic_ (not recognised at owl level, Mastery Available

Which left the only available electives not offered at Hogwarts as:

 _Eastern Wizarding Etiquette and Culture_

 _Asian Wizarding Etiquette and Culture_

 _Magical Medicine_

 _Duelling – British Tradition_

 _Healing_

 _Goblin History and Culture_

 _European History of Magic_

 _Asian History of Magic_

The history and culture options all sounded boring, but _Duelling_ , and the medicine subjects looked interesting, even if the information available was frustratingly limited. Harry smiled as he reread the subjects he could only study as a Mastery. Spell _Crafting!_ Actually _creating_ spells? That sounded absolutely fascinating as did the origins of magic. Where _did_ magic come from? It was an incredible question that Harry had never even bothered to think about, but he quickly added a post script asking about books on the topics to his latest letter to Mr Moon.

By the next morning his books had arrived, and Harry spent the next few weeks reading like he had never read before, the Misuse of Magic Section of the Law Enforcement book revealed that underage magic was detected by something called the trace, a subject upon which Moon was regretfully unable to offer him further assistance.

On the other hand, _Unfogging the Future_ was very helpful and clearly explained the nature of different types of prophecies and their properties. For example, there were various forms of divination such as reading tea leaves and crystal balls that a true seer could use at will, however these were often unreliable as, even if the person reading them was a seer, which wasn't always the case, reading was subject to the seer's personal interpretation.

On the other hand, true prophesies were spoken, and were usually the result of a prophetic trance that only the most gifted seers could bring on at will. These would almost always come true however the ambiguity of language still meant that free will held, events would be confined to something that could _conceivably_ fit into the wording of the prophecy however the book warned strongly against acting on or trying to influence a prophecy. In short, the text seemed to suggest that even at its best, divination was an extremely imprecise art which could only offer a vague idea of the future even to the most proficient.

After reading the entire book cover to cover, Harry decided against taking it in third year, although it was all very interesting in theory, the book repeatedly referred to a _true seer_ in a way that seemed to suggest he lived in a world polluted by false seers and that these wannabees should really just leave things to the professionals.

On the other hand, Harry was greatly enjoying _Numerology and Grammatica_ by _L. Wakefeild and M. Carneiro_ which essentially picked up mathematics where he had left off at muggle school and took it more into the realms of physics, which specific focus on magical waves, fluctuations and variance. In short, it was _fascinating._ Ancient Runes was much drier and seemed more like learning complicated Japanese characters than anything else Harry was familiar with, but the introduction to _Ancient Runes Made Easy_ discussed the necessity of runes in the British and European spall crafting tradition, so Harry persevered, even going so far as to copy down a few of his favourites, though he dreaded to think what the Dursley's would do if they even happened to pick up Dudley's old notebook.

 _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ by _Newt Scamander_ had also been thoroughly covered in the week following its arrival, and Harry was amazed to read about the variety of magical creatures in the world. It was a wonder he'd never run across one before, although as he thought about it, Harry remembered the talking snake from the zoo that one time and admitted that maybe he had after all.

Moon had also eventually been able to locate _A Beginner's Guide to Spell Crafting_ and two books called _Origins of Magic_ by _Nicolas Flamel_ – which made Harry feel rather guilty for the Philosopher's Stone incident, not least because it was brilliant, and the world had now lost the possibility of a sequel – and another called _Finding Magic_ by _Wo Li_ which each seemed to offer a different, but not necessarily opposing view on how witches and wizards came to have magic.

On the one hand, Flamel asserted that all magic originally came from certain breeds of magical creature such as Veela, Centaurs, Goblins and Giants which were able to breed with humans and thereby pass on their own innate magic to their part human offspring. Harry had been very disappointed to find that whatever 'Veela' were, they weren't a fantastic beast, but he still got the general idea.

Li on the other hand, talked about magic as being concentrated in a 'magical core' that apparently existed inside every witch, wizard and magical creature, but not, it was implied, insides muggles, cats, and dogs.

Harry personally felt that these ideas opened more questions than they actually answered, but after all the trouble Moon had gone to to find them, he didn't really want to demand more books on the subject.

On the other hand, _The Healing Powers of Magic_ had quickly convinced Harry that he wasn't meant to be a healer. Although he'd made note of some of the simpler spelled to flush out curse residue, and heal bones and minor scrapes, two paragraphs into _Chapter Two: Magical Diseases_ Harry had been well and truly out of his depth.

Yet the book which had most drastically effected Harry's life was one he had almost not gotten. It had the demeaning title _What You Need to Know About the Magical World: Basics for Children_ and Harry had only decided to buy it after a particularly gruelling chapter on rune combinations in advanced charms had left him wanting something a little lighter so he could procrastinate in a productive way.

The book had been amazing! It had immediately told him to take out a subscription to the _Daily Prophet_ and had gone on to explain the existence of the night bus as a suggested way for young muggleborns to get around. Furthermore, although the word 'muggleborn' had seemed fairly self-explanatory, the book had gone on to explain in great detail, the ideas and issues surrounding blood-purity, which Harry had barely been aware of after skimming the issue with Hagrid a year earlier. The book also offered the simple and straight forward breakdown of the Ministry that Harry had originally been looking for, and talked about Quidditch as a major interest of most young witches and wizards, something for which Harry would have been very grateful a year ago.

The result was that when Harry's second strangest birthday of all time rolled around, he had quite forgotten about his plans to retrieve his trunk from the cupboard under the stairs, and had been so distracted by the growing stacks of books under his bed, he hadn't even noticed the lack of communication from Ron and Hermione, let alone considered writing to them himself.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"Harry Potter!" The little bat eared creature with ridiculously large eyes squealed, "so long has Dobby wanted to meet you sir…such an honour it is…" the thing trailed off, neglecting to address its reasons for being on his bed.

"Thank-you?" Harry tried tentatively. The painfully loud creature began to tear up immediately.

"Harry Potter thanks Dobby?" it said, pitch increasing as it went.

"May I ask who you are?" he interrupted, aiming to distract it with an explanation of its presence. Hopefully a quiet one.

"Dobby sir, just Dobby, Dobby the house elf," the thing, now identified as Dobby told him, seeming to choke back tears.

"Oh – not to seem rude…but what's a house elf?" Harry asked, hoping Dobby – a gender would a been nice – wouldn't be offended.

"A house elf be taking care of wizard's sir…Dobby is bound to serve one family forever sir…" the elf trailed off again. Feeling the important points had now been addressed, and very mindful of the sound of the Masons downstairs, Harry nodded and edged forward to sit on his desk chair.

"Okay Dobby…not that I'm not pleased to meet you, but this isn't a great time for me to have a house elf in my bedroom," Harry said carefully.

"Oh yes sir, Dobby understands, but Dobby had to warn Harry Potter… _Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts,"_ there was a pause while Harry processed this new development.

"Why?" he asked, after a moment.

"There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year- " the tiny creature, which seemed quite insane, was ranting but Harry cut it off.

"A plot by who?" however this question seemed tip the elf quite over the edge as it promptly began banging its head against Harry's desk. Harry grabbed it bodily by the filthy pillow case it appeared to be wearing, and lifted it away from said desk.

"Please be _quiet!"_ he whispered, straining to hear anything from downstairs.

"Dobby, had to punish himself, sir," the elf said dejectedly. For the first time it occurred to Harry that what he was looking at was magically induced slavery. Putting the elf gently down on the floor Harry knelt down next to it.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" he asked it gently. The elf hesitated, then shook its head.

"Okay, look I won't go back to Hogwarts," Harry lied is a whisper, "thank-you for coming to warn me."

"Really sir? Oh, Dobby is so pleased, sir!" the elf squealed, and Harry winced.

"That's all right, you have a good evening Dobby," he said quickly, hoping to get rid of the creature without any more loud-noises.

"And a very good evening to you to you to, sir," the elf said cheerfully, before it vanished with a quiet _pop_.

Harry stood very still for a moment, processing this new development. Then laughed quietly into his sleeve.

The clink of knives and forks from downstairs called him back to the present moment and Harry carefully sat down on his bed and pulled out his ancient runes book. He had just passed the halfway point and was feeling cautiously optimistic about his chances of finishing it without resorting to stabbing himself or someone else with a fork out of pure frustration.

However unsurprisingly, he found his eyes wouldn't focus on the explanation of runes combinations used in – banned – ritual magic that he was supposed to be reading about. Dobby had quite clearly been mad, and likely a danger to himself as well as Harry, but he couldn't quite get the image of Dobby banging his head against the desk out of his mind.

It had never really occurred to Harry to think about magic being used in that sort of context. To actually control another creature's actions to that degree. Dobby hadn't been loopy, he'd known exactly what he was doing but had still been forced to do it…against his will.

" _Dobby is bound to serve one family forever, sir…"_ Dobby's words echoed ominously in his mind.

Closing his runes book, Harry crossed to his desk, pulled his notebook towards him, flipped to a blank page and began penning a new letter to Moon.

 _Dear Mr Moon_

He paused, trying to think of a non-house-elf-plot-at-Hogwarts way of introducing this topic.

 _Dear Mr Moon_

 _I was reading through the copy of_ The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts _that you were generous enough to recommend to me, and came a few times across mention of the_ Imperious Curse _which it said was used to control and force other wizard's actions during the war._

This was all actually true, although what he wasn't mentioning was that it was one of the few useful things the book had had to offer.

 _I was wondering if there were any ways to defend against this sort of magic, and if you could recommend anything to me._

 _Kind Regards_

 _Harry James Potter_

Harry chewed his lip as he folded up his letter and let Hedwig out of her cage. Although reading about the curse hadn't alarmed Harry the way watching Dobby had, it was true that it probably should have. He had no idea whether the sort of magic that compelled Dobby could be used on wizards – one thing _Fantastic Beasts_ had been very clear on was that creature magic and Wizard magic did not necessarily operate in the same way – but he knew for sure that this curse couldbe used on him.

After sending Hedwig off with the letter Harry returned to his bed, only to find it was now occupied by a small parcel of letters. Harry picked the bundle up carefully and read the note scrawled on top.

 _Harry Potter must not be angry with Dobby. Dobby hoped that if Harry potter though his friends had forgotten him, Harry Potter might not want to go back to school_

Harry frowned as he slowly sat down and stared at the bundle. It had never occurred to him that his friends weren't writing, and he'd never thought of writing to them. It wasn't that he didn't like Ron and Hermione, it was just that…well…he'd never really had friends before them and…he was really enjoying just being on his own and reading and not needing to worry about what other people thought of him.

Only he could now clearly see that his friends _had_ been writing to him. And they likely though he'd been ignoring them. The though filled Harry with a very familiar sense of trepidation.

He'd spent most of his young life trying to delay the point at which anyone he met realised he was a freak. Even when he hadn't understood what that meant everyone else had seemed to. Sometimes the Dursley's told them, sometimes the neighbours. But somehow, they would always eventually find out and then they'd start to politely avoid him and he would know that they knew.

What was he supposed to write to Ron and Hermione? That a house-elf had been blocking his mail? No one would believe that! No. No better to say that he'd been getting their letters, but his uncle had locked Hedwig's cage, so he couldn't reply. That was very plausible. And also, not far from the truth. He would see them both anyway in a couple of weeks when they went to Diagon Alley…provided the Grangers still came to get him. Harry set the bundle of letters down beside his bed and lay there looking up at the ceiling, ancient runes forgotten.

There was nothing wrong with his plan that he could see, but that didn't mitigate the adrenaline pumping through his system.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply. He knew he was avoiding the problem by not opening the letters. He also knew, all though he'd been doing a good job of ignoring the fact lately, that he was ignoring a similar problem by not bothering to retrieve the photo album Hagrid had given him from the cupboard under the stairs. Harry had never coped well with emotional confrontation, which both were likely to cause. He still vividly remembered his complete inability to function for some time after he first discovered the Mirror of Erised. Gritting his teeth, Harry reached down beside his bed and pulled out the letters. He pulled off the string and began sorting them by correspondent.

There were four from Hermione, six from Ron, two from Hagrid, and even one from Neville which made Harry feel very guilty when he remembered he couldn't respond to it. Neville was the unpopular kid at Hogwarts. Harry knew exactly how that felt…

Beginning with the letter from Neville, Harry opened it and read through. It was nothing of any particular importance, just good wishes and a description of what Neville had been doing, a few questions about the summer homework which Harry realised he'd also not given any thought to.

Ron's letters were similar, only without the considerations for school work and with repeated questions about why Harry wasn't writing back. Hermione's followed the same patent only with _lots_ of reference to homework, and Hagrid's mostly just asked about Harry and how he was doing.

The problem was that by the time he was finished, Harry knew he'd never be able to manage not responding, the nervousness and suspense would kill him. It was very clear what it was his friends wanted him to do and Harry would never be able to sleep properly now until he did it. The fact that he knew this was an absurd aspect of his personality and one he wished to be rid of changed nothing. Harry _hated_ disappointing people. To this end Harry sat down and write two nearly identical letters.

 _Dear Ron/Hermione_

 _I'm sorry I haven't managed to get back to you sooner, but the Dursleys have locked Hedwig in her cage and won't let me let her out until I'm leaving as they don't want owls coming to the house. I'm okay, and I can't wait to see you both at Diagon Alley_

 _Harry_

Good. That should be fine. Now all he had to do was wait for Ron's next letter and give them both to the owl to take back. However it happened, the word would get out and Harry would be off the hook.

The letter arrived the next day while Harry was watering the garden. Harry heard his aunt scream when it descended to land next to Harry. Thinking quickly, Harry scooped the bird up and letting it sit on his arm as he raced inside and up to his room. Pulling the letter roughly from its ankle, Harry grabbed his own letter from under his pillow and was just at the point of throwing the bird out the window when his uncle arrived in the doorway.

"YOU!" Vernon Dursley bellowed, grabbing Harry by a fistful of his hair and tossing him hard onto the ground.

"I WILL NOT HAVE OWLS IN THIS HOUSE!" he yelled, spit flying every which way, "I WILL NOT HAVE IT!"

The resultant whipping, Harry held down over the end of his bed while his uncle made judicious use of the buckle end of his belt, had only been the beginning.

The storm had finally broken, and the Dursleys, now finally forced to deal with Harry's 'freakishness', dealt like never before. Harry was locked in his room, the window of which now had bars, and was only allowed out twice a day to use the facilities. Meals had become an extremely irregular occurrence and usually consisted of cold tinned soup or a little bit of leftovers. Hedwig was once again furious at her confinement, but as Harry had no way of letting her out to do more then fly around his room, which he did often, as the chance of being caught had at the very least dropped considerably, he was struggling to feel much sympathy for her constant bad mood.

Moon had recommended a book titled _An Introduction to Occlumency_ as the best way to defend against magic such as the Imperious Curse, however the Bars had put a stop to further communication. Within the first few days of his confinement, harry had finished _Ancient Runes Made Easy_ and had followed it up by properly reading the Dark Arts book, as he had inicaially only focused on the parts relating to his parents and himself, not actually having been particularly interested in the first place.

His initial impression of the text had not been disproved. It read like a school history book, which was to say that everything written within smelled of governmental approval and gave nothing but the most general overview of the events it discussed. He'd been interested to learn that 'Dark Lord' was not simply a title Voldemort had made up for himself but was actually a common designation given to wizards who were considered to have mastered the several fields of the Dark Arts. More interesting had been the fact that just prior to Voldemort there had been another Dark Lord, Grindelwald, who had started a war in Germany, but more surprising still had been Merlin's inclusion in the list of Dark Lords who had lived too long ago for there be more than a few chapters of information on them.

However aside from these basic facts, the book offered very little. It claimed that Grindelwald had wanted to conquer the world and rule the muggles, and that Voldemort had wanted to kill them, and cited blood supremacy as a doctrine of both wizards, but the actual reasons for _why_ they wanted these things enough to devote their lives to attempting revolutions which eventually vanquished both of them, were frustratingly absent from the text.

It may be a little odd, but Harry's parents had _died_ during a _war_ ; he wanted to know what _specifically_ they had been fighting over.

It was during the second week, while Harry was perusing the books on the ministry with, though he couldn't see it, a highly disgusted look on his face, that something completely predictable, but which both Harry and the Dursleys had failed to remember was happening, occurred.

The Grangers rang the front door bell.

Harry heard Hermione's voice from down stairs and immediately recalled the discussion from Kings Cross. He'd completely lost track of the date. Thinking quickly, Harry shoved the boring book under his bed, just as he heard feet on the stairs. He quickly looked around the room, but there was nothing else telling visible, so he grabbed the old back pack he'd used for muggle school and waited quietly while Uncle Vernon addressed the many locks that had recently taken up residence on the outside of his bedroom door.

"Hurry up, boy," Vernon called, the moment he got the door open. Harry could see he was already regretting agreeing to this and had to congratulate himself on successfully springing it on him in June.

"Yes, sir," he murmured, rushing past his uncle to join a very uncomfortable looking Granger family in the hall.

"We'll have him back by six," Mr Granger announced, looking at Harry's uncle, who merely grunted, showing clearly with both tone and posture that he wanted them all out of his house.

Praying that they wouldn't go into his room while he was out, Harry followed a very awkward looking Hermione to her father's car.

"Happy Birthday, Harry," she said quietly, breaking the silence as he climbed into the car beside her.

"Thanks," Harry replied, smiling his best it's-all-fine smile at her, and trying his best to cover the fact that his own birthday had completely slipped him mind, "and thank you for coming to get me Mr Granger," Harry added, glancing up at the rear-view mirror.

"That's quite aright, Harry," Hermione's father responded, smiling back. This seemed to be what was needed, as Hermione immediately began a long spiel about their transfiguration homework, which to which Harry lent half and ear as he hadn't actually done it yet and most of this would likely be very helpful when he got a chance.

It was when she moved on to their electives next year that he began to pay proper attention.

"I know its recommended to only take three," she was saying "but their all look so interesting and I'd hate to miss out on anything. Have you thought at all about it Harry? You really should, they can effect what jobs you can get later on and it's very important to think about these things although of course out doubt Ron will but then he's got lot of brothers to give him advice and – " Harry didn't bother to mention that he did in fact know all of this but was instead contemplating something rather risky. You see while he had decided against trying to peruse healing in any form, Duelling as a distance elective, and just generally as a life skill, interested him greatly.

But you had to have someone to duel with.

"Do you know we're allowed to do subjects that aren't offered at Hogwarts?" he interrupted quietly.

" – that studying muggles from the perspective of – pardon?"

"We're allowed to do subjects that aren't offered at Hogwarts," Harry repeated cautiously.

"But Hogwarts is the best school in Britain!" Hermione argued loudly, "surely they offer any subjects worth studying." Harry shrugged as if to suggest it was just a thought but decided to take one more stab anyway.

"I guess…but it's like you said, I'd hate to miss out," he said shrugging again for good measure. Hermione visibly floundered for a moment, unable to argue with herself effectively. Then eventually relented, if grudgingly.

"What other subjects are there?" she said, sounding like she was humouring him, and not particularly graciously at that.

"There are a few history and culture subject, a couple of Healing subjects, and Duelling," he told her.

"Those all sound interesting," Mrs Granger offered from the front seat. Harry was then treated to the rear sight of a speechless Hermione.

"Well – yes – well, I guess they might be worth looking into," she admitted, to her mother, not to Harry.

"How did you find that out?" she asked, finally focusing her attention back on him.

"Some of the second years were talking about it," Harry lied quickly.

"Oh," Hermione finished lamely.

"Well – anyway – as I was saying…" and off she went again.

By the time they had reached London, Harry had been given a comprehensive rundown on each of the electives available in third year, as well as the pros and cons of doing other electives, and had had every possible pitfall in every homework assignment they'd been given pointed out to him. Subsequently, he was both exhausted, and planning on buying another notebook – that didn't have an addition table on the back – as soon as they got into Diagon Alley, so he could write as much of it as he could remember down.

"Did you bring money with you Harry," Mr Granger finally cut his daughter off as they were getting out of the car one block up from the leaky caldron.

"No sir, I'll have to go to Gringotts," he replied apologetically.

"Oh, the wizard bank!" Hermione exclaimed eagerly, "I've never been there but it looks so interesting, I've read the poem outside and – "

"Hermione," Mr Granger interrupted, for the first time looking impatient, "you have been talking since _Surry_."

Hermione blushed scarlet and stared at her feet, blinking quickly.

" _Rupert!"_ Hermione's mother hissed furiously, and Harry inwardly winced. The silence stretched for several minutes as the entered the pub and then followed Tom the barman out the back.

"Hermione's never really had a lot of friends, Harry," Mrs Granger said gently. Harry glanced at his friend, who looked like she was trying to vanish into the ground and hold back tears at the same time.

"She's just _excited to see you,"_ Hermione's mother finished, addressing the last bit forcefully to the back of her husband's head.

"That's okay," Harry said quietly, looking again at Hermione.

The silence however, did not concede to Mrs Grangers attempts but remained oppressively present as they walked up the alley.

Harry was confused; and still staring steadily at Hermione.

It had never occurred to him that she might have been the unpopular kid too and the sympathy he suddenly felt for her was overwhelming. Hermione walked stiffly and looked at no one. The few glimpses of her face that he caught suggested she was still fighting back tears. She seemed to have gotten smaller all of a sudden, her bushy cloud of ginger brown hair seeming to have actually retreated towards her head.

"I'd like to make a withdrawal please," Harry said quietly to the first goblin teller he saw.

"Key," it replied grumpily.

"I'm sorry, Professor Dumbledore has my key," Harry replied, suddenly realising this was still true. Why hadn't Hagrid given it to him last year?

The Goblin glared at him.

"Is there some other security measure that can be put on my vault, so I won't need it?" Harry asked, thinking of the vault the Philosopher's stone had been in.

"That costs money, Mr Potter," the goblin admonished.

"How much?" Harry asked, losing some of his timidness at the implied confirmation and not even bothering to wonder how the goblin knew who he was.

"Three galleons for password, six for magical identification," was the reply.

"I'd like magical identification, please," Harry replied, not wanting to use something as fallible as a password, which was almost as bad as just having a key.

"Hand," the goblin ordered. Harry dutifully held his out and the goblin unceremoniously slit his palm with a knife the was conveniently to hand and then proceeded to drip some of his blood onto a piece of paper that he quickly pulled from somewhere. Harry nursed his injured hand while the goblin did whatever it was doing with his blood, fervently wishing he'd had the presence of mind to offer it his _left_ hand.

"Follow me, Mr Potter," he goblin said, climbing down from the desk and leading him away towards the vaults. He glared as Harry stepped into the cart behind him, then waved a clawed hand over his injured one, healing it instantly.

"Thank-you, sir," he said quietly. The goblin only grunted and started the cart.

The procedure for opening his vault was very different this year, the goblin waved and tapped at the vault's door for some time before instructing him to place his hand on it, at which he heard a subtle click and the door finally opened. Harry made sure to collect several big handfuls of galleons this time, after all he had a tab at _Flourish and Blots_ to cover, so all up it was a good fifteen minutes before he returned to the waiting Grangers.

"All done?" Mrs Granger asked kindly. Harry nodded, smiling back at her.

"We're supposed to be meeting the Weasleys at the book shop," Mr Granger interjected uncertainly, looking at his wife. She nodded, still clearly annoyed with him, and they walked in a slightly less oppressive silence down to _Flourish and Blots_.

The moment they arrived, Harry missed the silence.

The bookshop was packed, a line extending from somewhere within through the door and off down the Alley, which appeared to be made up primarily of witches Hermione's parents age, was blocking to doorway and taking up a good deal of the front of the store from what harry could see. The remainder of the space was filled with Hogwarts students and their families, navigating around and through the line in order to locate course books.

This brought a sudden thought to Harry's mind.

"Um…Hermione, did you get the book list?" he asked timidly. She looked up at him, frowning.

"Of course, didn't you?" she asked confusedly. Harry shrugged.

"Probably, no owls remember…" he trailed off awkwardly. Hermione nodded, with a look of sudden comprehension and pulled a piece of parchment from her pocket.

 _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2_ by Miranda Goshawk

 _Break with a Banshee_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Gadding with Ghouls_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Holidays with Hags_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Travels with Trolls_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Voyages with Vampires_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Wanderings with Werewolves_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Year with the Yeti_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

A sudden squeal interrupted Harry as he was processing his feelings of foreboding at all the alliteration.

"Look," Hermione squealed again, pointing to a large banner stretched across the upper windows of the store.

GILDEROY LOCKHART

will be signing copies of his autobiography

MAGICAL ME

today 12:30 – 4:30pm

Harry took an immediate dislike to this person.

Not only was he responsible for a long list of what sounded like picture books, but he was also apparently the cause of the multitude of people filling the bookstore, and depriving Harry of what he had hoped would be a pleasant few minutes browsing in peace with Hermione before Ron arrived and demanded they all go and 'do something.'

"We can actually _meet_ him, I mean he's written half the booklist –" Hermione stopped suddenly, looking at Harry and blushing, he smiled and handed her copy back to her.

"I'll get the Goshawk books if you'd like to get us his stuff," he offered. Hermione grinned and nodded as they both stepped into the crowd of students struggle to shop amid the chaos.

Admittedly, Harry's reasons for his suggestion weren't entirely altruistic. He was rather hoping to locate Moon and get that Occlumency book he'd recommended so he'd have something interesting to read over the two weeks before term started. Therefore, as soon as he'd manage to lose the grangers in the crowd, Harry turned back towards the entrance where a harassed looking shop attendant was attempting to bring some sort of order to the chaos.

"Calmly, please ladies…don't push there…mind the books, now…" he was saying with an expression that implied he had no delusions about the women's inclination to 'mind the books.'

"Excuse me," Harry said, once he'd reached the shop attendant's side, "I'm looking for Moon, is he here?"

The attendant gave him a very unimpressed look. He was tall and thin, with straw coloured hair and a slightly waxy completion which only highlighted the generally bothered look in his pale blue eyes.

"Speaking?"

"Oh," Harry smiled brightly, "I'm Harry Potter," the young man's expression did a complete one-eighty, "do you still happen to have the book you mentioned in your last letter?"

Moon nodded distractedly, staring out over the sea of middle-aged women, then seemed to come to a decision.

"This way," he said, leading Harry back into the shop and into a small side room that appeared to function as some mix of store room, filling room, bedroom, and office. Moon immediately pulled the book from under a pile of papers, some of which Harry recognised as his own letters, and handed it to him.

"Close the door, will you?" he said, sitting down on the edge of his desk and giving Harry a long-suffering expression. His distaste for the noise level in the shop overriding his natural concern at being alone with a relatively unknown adult, Harry did so.

Moon sighed, closing his eyes and tilting his head back.

"If anyone asks, you were paying your tab," Harry grinned as he sifted the book in his arms and handed Moon the purse he'd just acquired at Gringotts.

"If anyone asks, I was asking you where to find the Goshawk books." Moon grunted.

"Third aisle, this side, far end of the store," he recited.

There was a moment of silence before Moon opened his eyes.

"Why'd you stop writing, I was getting worried?" he asked, crossing one ankle over the other.

"My muggles found out and put bars on my window," Harry deadpanned. Moons eyebrows shot up.

"Blimey," he muttered, looking at Harry, "you don't get along then?"

Harry shook his head. Moon frowned.

"What are you gonna do with all the books when you go back to school then?" he asked, "I doubt they'll all fit in your trunk especially with all the Lockhart books."

"I don't know to be honest," Harry admitted. It was actually a problem he'd been worrying about a bit over the past few weeks. Harry had brought a total of twelve new books so far, including the one he was holding, and this, added to two years' worth of school books and all the other things that would have to go in his trunk, added up to a concerning volume.

"You should get one of those trunks with compartments they sell across the road," Moon suggested, "if you're willing to pay for it you can get one that'll hold hundreds of books," he grinned a little self-consciously at Harry, "I got one in my seventh year, I probably didn't need it, but it was cool anyway."

Harry nodded politely.

"I might just do that," he replied. Moon, seeming to decide her could no longer delay, pulled a piece of parchment out of a nearby draw and after consulting it for a moment, began counting out galleons onto the desk.

"I don't have any change in here," he said awkwardly, realising that was all the purse contained.

"That's fine," Harry said, taking the purse back, "consider it a down payment on future purchases."

Moon seemed about to argue but decided against it at the last moment and simply made a note on Harry's tab before returning the draw.

"I suppose I better not push me luck with my manager," he sighed, standing up. Harry moved out of the way so he could open the door, feeling that it would be impolite to do so himself.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Moon said by way of farewell, ducking around Harry.

"Likewise," Harry replied smiling and nodding politely. Moon disappeared into the crowed.

Harry stood there for a moment, debating with himself whether to look into Moon's suggestion now or later with Ron and Hermione. But then, he couldn't very well explain to them why he needed a new trunk with extra book space without admitting that he could have written them but hadn't thought of it. And it was only across the street.

Carefully slinking around the back of the shop, Harry ducked out as unobtrusively as he could manage and crossed the street into the little accessories shop he'd been to last year with Hagrid. The place was small but had a high ceiling, and was lined with shelves packed with bags, hats, shoes, belts, and all manner of other things. There was a faint smell of leather in the air and the bright light from a medium sized chandelier combined with a low store from outside gave the place an eternally inside.

"May I help you?" a portly proprietor asked, stepping in through a doorway behind the counter that presumably led to the back of the shop.

"Hi," Harry said, putting on his most polite smile.

"I was wondering of you have any trunks with extra space for books?" the man's face lit up immediately.

"Why of course! We can offer you the simple model with only a basic expansion charm if you would like but if you're after something more advanced we have several multi-compartment designs that include a library compartment which can be offered in various sizes depending on your needs, all of course available with feather light charm included and…" at this point he paused his enthusiastic tirade and leant a little closer to Harry.

"I've just managed to patent a design with a built in shrinking charm, papers just arrived from the ministry a few days ago. As a young wizard still in school, you're not allowed to shrink or levitate your own trunk, with can be no end of bother to young people. But with this, a simple tap will shrink it to the size of a matchbox and then unshrink it for you again. Its brilliant! You don't even need to have your wand in your hand so there's no way anyone can accuse you!"

Harry continued nodding as the man spoke, thinking of his struggle to get his belongings on board the Express last year, but more specifically, of his need for a better way to hide magical possessions from the Dursleys.

"I'll take one," he said definitively. The man grinned broadly, bustling behind the counter and pulling out a form.

"Alright then, young sir," he said, his enthusiasm for his vocation beginning to infect Harry to, "first things first. How many compartments would you like?" Harry bit his lip, thinking.

"What the cost variation?" he asked.

"Three compartments is 6 galleons, with the five and seven compartment models coming in at 9 and 13 galleons respectively. That's before any other upgrades though." He replied uncertainly. Harry nodded, taking this in.

"I think I'll take the three compartments one, with the shrinking charm you mentioned and is there any way to enchant it so only I can open it?" he asked.

"Certainly, I can offer the basic password locking system however if you'd like something more advance we offer magic and blood identification however those are a little more expensive," the shopkeeper replied.

"I'll just take the password option please," Harry decided. For his bank account it wouldn't do but this was slightly lower stakes.

"And would you like separate passwords for each compartment or one general one?" he asked.

"Separate," Harry replied. The shopkeeper made some more notes for a moment, then glanced up at Harry.

"Any preferred design, young sir?" he asked. Struck be a sudden idea, Harry turned and looked around the shop until he found the trunk Hagrid had gotten him.

"Can you make it look like that?" he asked pointing. The shopkeeper smiled and nodded conspiratorially.

"So, you'd like a three-compartment trunk with an in-built shrinking charm designed to look like a regular trunk, but still with the standard indestructibility charms I presume?" he clarified. Harry nodded sheepishly.

"I presume you'd like one regular compartment then?" he asked, and Harry nodded again.

"And a library compartment – standard?"

"What the difference?" Harry asked.

"Standard offers you two shelves five meters long, I can add length to that at well as extra shelves for a bit more," the man elaborated. Harry though about it for a moment.

"Can I come back to get extra space if I ever need it?" he asked.

"Not really," the man frowned and looked uncomfortable.

"Better make it ten meters then, just to be safe," Harry decided. Who knew how long he was going to have this trunk.

"And the third compartment?"

"What are my options?"

"Anything you want really," the man shrugged, "if you want I can give you a large stone room about the size of your averages potions lab and you can turn it into whatever you like." Harry nodded, thinking this actually offered great potential for hiding his broom and Hedwig, or even himself.

"Alright so that's six galleons for three compartments plus ten sickles for then expanded library and fifteen for the shrinking charm, all up that comes to seven galleons and five sickles," he said smiling as Harry laid out eight galleons on the counter.

"I can finish it tomorrow and you can come get in Monday if you'd like Mr…"

"Potter," Harry supplied, "I'll see you then!" he quickly ducked out of the shop before the shop keeper could finish coming to the obvious conclusion.

Remembering Moon's advice, it took Harry only a moment to locate the books he and Hermione required however upon approaching the counter, scanning for the Grangers or even Ron, he came across the rather terrifying site of two men brawling on the flaw, cheered on by what looked like half the Weasley clan.

"Gentlemen, please – please!" Moon shouted bustling over.

Harry rushed over to help him and was joined in pulling away a man that could only be Ron's father by the woman he remembered form Kings Cross. Moon meanwhile was pulling a blond man from the other side under the stunned eyes of one Draco Malfoy.

"Here, girl – take your book – it's the best your father can give you –" the blond man, whom Harry was guessing was Malfoy's father, spat handing Ron's little sister a book before beckoning to Draco and sweeping out of the shop.

"Harry Potter, I presume?" Mr Weasley said, turning to Harry.

"Yes, sir," Harry nodded, bending down and beginning to collect some of the fallen books.

"Come on Arthur, we really should help to," Mrs Weasley told her husband crossly, setting down her things and beginning to assist Harry and Moon in putting the shop to rights. The youngest Weasley, whom Harry was fairly sure was named Ginny, quickly put down her cauldron and set herself to collecting books too. With the help of the rest of the Weasley clan as well as Hermione and her family, the shop was tidied within a few minutes and Mrs Weasley was apologising profusely to Moon about the trouble.

"Nothing to worry about, ma'am," he was telling her a little stiffly as Harry picked up Ginny's cauldron and went to stand with the rest of the Weasleys. Ginny blushed horribly at the act of gallantry, but Harry pretended he hadn't seen. Mr Weasley insisted on taking everyone out for ice-cream to apologise for the entire scene and it was just as he was shifting Ginny's admittedly heavy cauldron as he waited for everyone to choose a flavour, that harry notice a battered leather notebook peeking out of her copy of _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration._

"Is this yours?" he asked Ginny who promptly gasped and, after only the briefest of glances to see what he was talking about, began shaking her head vigorously. Harry shrugged, sitting down as Fred and George finally finished ordering, and oped the little book up. However, to his surprise it was completely blank.

"Do you mind if I keep it then?" Harry asked, glancing back up at Ginny. She shook her head, blushing worse than ever as she sat down across from him.

"Here are you books by the way," Hermione put in, setting down a large linen bag in front of him, his copy of this year's Standard Book of Spells peering out of the top.

"Thanks," Harry said as he relocated the bag to the floor, sliding the diary and his occlumency book, which thankfully no one had commented on in all the action, in as well.

The rest of the day past without further excitement, Harry and Hermine only needing to refill their potions kits before returning to school, and Hermione declining Ron's suggestion that she ask her parents to but her a broom. The car ride back with the Grangers was pleasantly quiet, as Hermione buried herself in _Gadding with Ghouls_ and Harry relaxed into the car seat, planning out his next few moves and generally ruminating on the state of things.

He could take the night bus up to London on Monday but only if he could find a way to get out of the house, or more specifically, his bedroom. He would also need to find a time, presumably at night, when he could sneak downstairs and get his wand from his trunk. Really the entire thing was only feasible if the Dursleys stopped locking his door. However, presuming he managed to get to London and back with his new trunk, he could move almost everything out of his old one and keep the new one in his room.

Sadly, none of this solved his problem with corresponance but if he could get out of his room at night he could release Hedwig into the backyard. Receiving letters – and books – promised to be a little more complicated but it was something at least.

"Hermione," Harry said quietly, getting out of the car. She looked up and Harry swallowed, acutely aware that he was about to be more honest with her then he had probably been since they'd met.

"I didn't have a lot of friends growing up either."

Harry shut the car door and walked up to number four without looking back, his arms full of his new books and potions equipment.

Okay. Hello people reading this.

So, this isn't the first fanfic I've written but it is the first time I've had any sort of sense that there were people actually reading my work. I'll try to contain my excitement for the most part contained but I'll inevitably fail so I'm apologising in advance.

So what do you think?

Is it too fast paced? Does Harry seem too smart for a twelve-year-old? Does he lack 'objective correlative'? Am I doing an okay job of creating a British setting? Does the whole thing just seem really tacky and stupid? How many typos have I missed?

But most significantly, how do I get the line across the top of the page that everyone else writes their author's note under? I can't figure it out.

Shout-out to Yenerys, who favorited this story 52mins after it was posted. I love you so much.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Vernon locked all of Harry's new books in his cupboard the moment he got in the door, Harry hiding the diary he'd gotten from Ginny in the waistband of his pants on a whim. It was completely blank of course, but it was the only one of the books that was small enough to fit even under his baggy clothes.

Spite did no good, but it felt nice. Then he was locked back in his room.

As the sound of his uncle's footsteps died away Harry pulled the diary out and tossed it on his desk, glaring at nothing in particular. He pulled out the ministry books he'd been reading but after about twenty minutes found he could no longer concentrate.

All the good books were downstairs, and he couldn't write for more and he was still locked in and he was _bored._ Harry had never been a particularly hyperactive child. He'd had to get used to boredom between gruelling hours of manual labour slaving for his relatives, and long hours and days and _weeks_ locked in his cupboard, but it had been almost a year since then and Harry _didn't want to go back._

He knew it was a little childish. That no one cared what _he_ wanted. That dignity was a commodity and that freedom and basic right were just a fiction created and traded in first would societies to give people a false sense of security. He _knew._ But that didn't change what he wanted.

Distractedly, Harry realised he was pacing the length of his room and stopped. He stared down at his desk, struggling for a way out. There was one. Actually, there were probably dozens he just needed to find some of them. On his desk, apart from the new, old, and empty book he just dropped there, there were a few scraps of paper, pens, scissors and the notebook in which he'd been practicing runes. Harry picked it up and flipped through it rapidly. When he didn't find what he was looking for he pulled the original book out from under his bed and began flipping through it, copying down every rune of any origin he could find that was to do with unlocking, opening, clearing obstacles, or anything else that seemed vaguely helpful. By the time he'd gotten to the end of the book he has seven pages of runes and descriptions.

He quickly pulled the new book towards him and began resorting the runes according to origin, mixing runes of different origins was a delicate process that took more mastery then he, after reading one book, had to offer. However almost immediately, the runes began to vanish into the page. Harry visibly snarled, ignoring the part of his brain that reminded him no one was a) present or b) likely to be interested in his little temper tantrum even if they were.

Then words formed.

 _What are you trying to open?_

Harry dropped his pen. The words shone there, the ink that of a quill, not of a biro. Maybe this was some prank of Fred and George's, a diary designed to write back to the owner? But that little niggling sensation of stray neurons firing was buzzing in the back of Harry's head.

Why would a prank object need to know about ancient runes? That wasn't a pre-recorded message designed to frighten the owner into some amusing reaction. That was a deduction made by a mind that was aware of what Harry had written in the diary and could discern meaning from it and then draw a conclusion.

 _Don't be afraid. I'm just a talking book._

Harry debated for a moment writing back. There was a reason the hat had wanted to put Harry in Slytherin. He was very aware that the safest option was to close the book and never touch in again, it was a magical item that could think for itself and had a set of unknown properties. Harry had no idea what it might do to him.

 _You've already written in me once…_

Harry bit his lip. There was also a reason that, when Harry had decided he didn't want to face the inevitable social backlash that his being sorted into Slytherin would cause, of the remaining three houses, the hat had chosen Gryffindor.

 _Who are you?_

 _My name is Tom Riddle, what's yours?_

Harry debated for a moment.

 _James Evens._

This time the diary took a second to respond.

 _Liar._

Harry grinned, enjoying this despite himself. Although he'd actually spoken to more people today then he had in the last month combined, he hadn't really _talked_ with any of them. He'd been carful. He was always carful. He'd been carful for a long as he could remember. If you weren't careful what you said, eventually Aunt Petunia heard about it and told Uncle Vernon. That was how gossip worked.

 _What are you?_

The book gave him a sense of security; obviously a false one but still. The fact that it couldn't speak to anyone about what he said didn't mean it couldn't tell anyone. For all he knew there could be a set of diaries and somewhere far away someone else was writing in the other one.

 _I would have thought that was obvious, I'm a talking book._

 _Liar._

Harry grinned. The page remained blank for a moment, Harry wondering if 'Tom' was going to deny it.

 _You still haven't answered my question. What are you trying to open?_

 _Why would I tell you?_

 _Because you need help._

 _How do you know?_

 _You're just listing runes, you have no idea what you're doing. You're desperate._

 _And you're going to help me?_

 _I might if you help me._

Harry sighed, relaxing into his seat. People, or conscious books, were always more dangerous when you didn't know what they wanted, once you could understand what drove them you could predict their action and hopefully avoid being driven over.

 _And how might I help you?_

A pause.

 _What year is it?_

Harry grinned, flipping back to the diary's cover. He'd noted that it was old when he pulled in out of Ginny's cauldron, however he hadn't paid much more attention than that. Now he read the year emblazoned on the front cover with interest.

1945

That, combined with the books question, suggested that it had probably been made around that time. If you were going to enchant a diary you'd likely do it with a new one rather then pour all that energy into something decrepit. Unless the diary was created for sentimental reasons. But Harry could think of no likely reason why someone would imbue their own diary from a long time ago with consciousness, which suggested that, if the diary wasn't made just for fun, it was made by someone who had loved this Tome Riddle very much. However, this theory was made less likely by the fact that he's found it stuffed into a second-hand textbook. If you were trying to replace a lost loved one with an enchanted object you'd presumably keep the object close. Or locked away somewhere safe.

 _I can practically feel you thinking._

The conclusion of all of this was that the diary was most likely almost fifty years old.

 _1992_

 _I see._

 _May I ask where we are?_

This question told Harry little more than that the book was probably completely unaware of its surroundings.

Although all of these questions could be purposed to lead him to a false conclusion.

 _Surry, Britain._

 _I see. I presume you are a wizard?_

Harry nodded, then realised Tom couldn't see him.

 _Yes._

 _Good._

 _What are you trying to open?_

Harry chewed his lip, trying to think of any possible ramifications of telling him/it.

 _My bedroom door._

 _You're locked in?_

 _Yes._

 _How old are you?_

 _Twelve._

 _You don't have your wand?_

 _No._

 _Any magical items at all?_

 _I have books._

 _No enchanted ones?_

 _Other then you? No._

Again the page remained blank for a moment, Harry getting the distinct feeling that Tom was thinking.

 _In that case you will have to use wandless magic. Even the most powerful runes are just pretty pictures without magic flowing through them. I can give you a few different combinations, but you will need to be able to perform at least a basic Alohomora without a wand._

Harry took a moment to chew the end of his pen. He was still wary of accepting help from the book but also knew that he was definitely going to anyway.

However, he'd never even heard of wandless magic. I mean sure he'd heard of people doing accidental magic without a wand involved, but he'd never spoken to anyone who could do that sort of thing _deliberately._

 _How do I learn wandless magic?_

 _The same way you learn any magic, you focus hard and try over and over again until you get it._

Harry frowned.

 _I just hold out my hand and say the incantation and think hard?_

 _Essentially yes, although it sometimes helps to approximate a wand movement with your hand._

Pursing his lips, Harry glared down at the book, his natural suspicion of any supposed altruism not lessened by the context in which the help was being offered. If his childhood had taught him anything it was that people were not intrinsically nice, and only tended to impersonate such a quality when they had something to gain by it, even when they weren't necessarily smart enough or self-aware enough to analyse their own motives. True, Tom had asked him questions, but…he'd already answered them. The book had to want something more.

 _I'll give it a try._

Not waiting for a response, Harry closed the diary and got up to locate another of Dudley's old exercise books. This he placed on his desk, but he didn't bother to actually open it, instead, he settled down on his bed with the lock that had formerly been on Hedwig's cage, and began trying to _will_ it open.

 _It's not working._

 _Then you're not trying hard enough._

 _That's not very helpful._

 _How do you expect me to help you with this?_

Harry smiled. He liked it when Tom got annoyed. He'd come to the conclusion after some experience talking to him, that Tom was a very nice person primarily because nice people tended to get what they wanted from other people. It sounded exhausting in theory which was why Harry had gone for the hero image already suggested to him, but it suggested a lot about Tom that he was willing to work so hard to be liked.

It also suggested a lot that he seemed to be letting the facade drop more and more often around Harry.

 _How should I feel when doing this?_

 _How do you usually feel when doing magic?_

 _Awkward and self-conscious?_

He could almost feel Tom rolling his eyes.

 _Magic is a part of you idiot child. If you cannot_ feel _it within you then I'm afraid you are the kind of mediocre wizard to whom wandless magic will forever remain unreachable._

Harry glared at the book before closing it. On second thoughts there were benefits to Tom's charming façade. One tended to get insulted less when it was up.

Harry lay down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. Hedwig hooted from the top of the bookshelf, but he didn't react. Tom's comment had hit a little too close to home for comfort. He didn't want to be mediocre, but he was also terribly afraid that he was. He knew he'd fudged his grades down a little so as to be on a level with Ron last year but there was still a part of him that was afraid that even if he tried, he'd never amount to much. Being magical was the only thing he really liked about himself. That and maybe his perseverance. Magic was the thing that proved the Dursley's and all the kids at his primary school and everyone else he'd ever known before he met Hagrid wrong. Magic was wonderful, indisputably wonderful and a letter hadn't come for any of them. It had come for him. His parents had been head boy and girl in their time, it was one if the only things he knew about them, that they'd been _really good students_. And what if he wasn't? What if he wasn't any good at the one thing that made him worthwhile?

Harry rolled over, thinking about Li's idea of the magical core. He closed his eyes and imagined in inside him, like a ball of light in his chest. He imagined it as a warmth, as a feeling of comfort and completeness.

" _Alohomora,"_ he whispered. He didn't need to open his eyes to know that the padlock he'd discarded on his bed hadn't opened. Of course, it hadn't, he'd been trying since he got home; it was nearly morning and it hadn't worked once.

Harry closed his hand around the cold piece of metal focusing on the idea of his magic inside him, trying to imagine it flowing up his arm and into the metal object in his hand. He tried to imagine the feel of it, his magic flowing into the padlock through his skin.

" _Alohomora!"_ he tried again but nothing happened. He could _feel_ that nothing happened because he _didn't feel any different._

" _ **Alohomora!"**_ he snarled, his eyes open this time as he glared with all his might at the object of his frustration. Once more, nothing happened.

Harry tossed the lock down on his bedside table and got up to turn off the light. He didn't know what time it was but there was grey light coming in through the window and he was tired and he should never have trusted the word of a talking book which clearly had ulterior motives in the first place. In all probability, Tom was just lying to screw with him anyway.

Harry blinked as his eyes grew damp. He knew he was just frustrated and tiered and completely over his ridiculous, shitty excuse for a life but he wasn't going to lie there and cry like a child because he was locked in his room and couldn't get out. He just wasn't.

Harry only slept a couple of hours before Petunia Dursley woke him for his morning bathroom trip by the simple expedient of banging on his bedroom door. Harry leapt up, pushing away his confusing dream and quickly swept the lock onto the floor, before running the door and slipping out as soon as his aunt opened it so she wouldn't see Hedwig who was now asleep on top of the bookshelf.

He was barely awake as he used the facilities, and quickly stumbled back to his room to collect as disgruntled Hedwig and return her to her cage, cursing himself for being so careless. This proved to be quite a challenging task as he had barely half the height of the shelf in question and his desk chair could only help so much. Subsequently, when Harry finally climbed down from the tower of books he built _on top_ of his chair he was irritated enough to be awake and though he might as well give the lock another go. He collapsed, resigned to his bad mood, back onto his bed and stared over the edge at the open lock on the floor.

Then he sat up. It was open. Harry leapt from his bed and quickly searched under it. The only padlock there was the one for his cupboard and it still had its key in it. He straitened and looked at his desk but the lock for Hedwig's cage was firming in place when he'd just put it.

Harry sat down and looked at the lock in his hands. He'd done it, somehow, he'd done it.

Barely daring to breath, Harry twisted the shank and then pushed it back into place. The resulting click sounded terribly final to his ears.

" _Alohomora,"_ he murmured, then pulled and the steel loop but it remained firmly where it was.

Closing his eyes, Harry imagined his magical core and tried to push it out into the lock.

" _Alohomora,"_ he tried again but the shank remained unyielding. Lying back, Harry tried to remember what he'd been dreaming about. He'd done magic in his sleep as a child when he grew his hair back, so it wasn't impossible. He seemed to remember Snape had been feeding him a motion that turned his blood to lemonade and then Dudley had stuck a straw through his skin and started drinking it.

Harry grimaced before reluctantly concentrating on the feeling of his blood fizzing and bubbling, and then the panic inducing sensation of having it sucked out of him.

" _Alohomora,"_ he murmured.

Click

Harry's eyes shot open and he stared at the open lock in his hands for a moment before shoving the shank home again.

Fizzing. Bubbling. Pouring out.

"Alohomora."

Click

 _Tom I did it!_

His writing was atrocious in his haste.

 _Very good. On your door?_

 _No, on something else but it worked._

 _Try it on the door._

Harry got up obediently and walked to the door, placing his hand bout where the locks were.

Bubbles. Fizzing.

"Alohomora," he murmured but even before he pushed on the still very locked door he could tell it hadn't worked. It didn't feel quite the same as it had before. It was like a hole had burst in the side of the straw and lemonade was just leaking out everywhere.

 _It didn't work._

 _I didn't really think it would. What type of lock do you have on your door?_

 _There's one of those simple sliding locks with a bar like they have on old public toilets, a padlock, one of those ones that's fitted into a handle and a few other's as well I think._

… _.._

 _I see._

 _But no enchantments?_

 _No._

Harry was very aware of the fact this was the closest he'd ever gotten to talking about himself to Tom Riddle from 1945.

 _In that case we should be fine. Scratch this run combination along the part of the door where the locks are._

A vertical line of joined runes appeared of the opposite page.

 _If you have to repeat the combination do so, but don't attempt to join the two combinations up. Also, be sure to make the scratches reasonably deep as you're going to be rubbing some of your blood into them._

Harry raised an eyebrow at this. _Ancient Runes Made Easy_ had mentioned the practice of using one's blood in rune creation in the introduction.

 _Isn't blood magic illegal?_

 _So wash it off when you're done. The chance of your muggles reporting it to the ministry seems rather low,_

Harry went cold all over.

 _I never told you I live with muggles._

 _You didn't have to. You live with people who lock you away using muggle means. Furthermore, they do this over a long enough time period that learning fairly difficult branches of magic such as ancient runes and wandless magic is a practical solution to the problem._

Harry didn't respond to that. On the one hand he knew he'd been conducting the same extensive analysis of what Tom had written or implied too. On the other, that didn't make it any less uncomfortable to have that analysis applied to him.

Eventually, Harry picked up his ancient runes book again and began leafing through it looking up the runes that Riddle had combined but they all looked harmless and focused on unlocking so eventually he stood up and walked over to his door, using the end of the spoon his aunt had slid in with his last meal some time yesterday to scratch them into the paint. It took a while and he had to use the combination twice but eventually he had the scratches deep enough. This left the somewhat unappetising task of finding something with which to cut himself, however he eventually managed to do so using one of the looser pieces from the broken screen of Dudley's old television set. The cut, which he'd made in his arm as he felt it would be the least irritating place, bled profusely and while this made the task of spreading the blood quite easy, getting the bleeding to stop was somewhat harder.

Harry eventually managed it by wrapping an ugly old t-shirt around it. This particular shirt had been red back when Dudley owned it but had be heading towards yellow by the time it was Harry's and was now a disturbing amalgamation of mustard and sick. Really, the red was an improvement, he might even go back to wearing it if he could get it to stain evenly.

 _Done._

 _Good. I presume you want to wait until your parents are asleep?_

 _They're not my parents._

 _Good to know._

Harry bit his lip, reluctantly admiring the play for information.

 _Do you know any healing charms? This is bleeding like anything._

' _Episkey'_

 _Thanks._

It was harder to focus on the feeling of bubbles this time, but Harry at least managed to stop the bleeding even if the cut wasn't entirely healed. He wrapped the bloody shirt in his doorjamb-jeans and sat back down at his desk.

 _And now we wait._

 _And now we wait._

 _How to I relock the door after I get my stuff?_

 _I was wondering when that would come up._

 _You'd already thought of it?_

 _Of course._

 _But you weren't going to tell me?_

 _No._

 _Why not?_

It was around lunch time – for everyone else – and Harry had spent most of the morning oscillating between reading about the Wizengamot administration and going over his planned activities for this evening. It had only just occurred to him that he had no reliable way of hiding the fact that he'd been out of his room during the night.

 _To begin with, I was only speculating that you would need to hide your activities. You've told me nothing about what we're doing._

Harry could see this quite clearly for the boldfaced manipulation that it was, but Riddle did have a point. He was asking for help without explaining the situation.

 _I'm sneaking out to get stuff from my truck, which is locked in the cupboard under the stairs._

 _Furthermore, if you are truly so carless as to miss a problem like that you deserve whatever punishment your muggles choose to bequeath._

Harry didn't argue with this, mostly because it followed his own system of logic pretty closely.

 _So how do I relock the door._

' _Colloportus'._

 _But won't that mean that my relatives can't open the door either?_

 _It will make it difficult, but as long there is a time gap of a few hours between your use of the spell and their next attempt to get in, I doubt your magic will be strong enough to cause them more difficulty then a stiff lock._

Something about Riddle's choice of phrasing made Harry's blood run cold. He licked his lips as he his pen hovered over the page, unsure if he truly wanted to ask the next question.

 _Have I already been expelled?_

 _You do realise that if you don't start thinking of these things_ beforehand _you're going to die one of these days, don't you?_

 _Tom!_

 _No, the ministry cannot detect wandless magic. It is read as accidental magic and the trace ignores it._

Harry let out a breath he hadn't even realised he was holding, cursing himself for his carelessness.

 _So as long as I don't use my wand they won't know?_

 _I do believe that's the idea of wandless magic._

 _What about potions?_

 _Do potions require a wand?_

…

 _I'm going to practice the locking charm._

 _Good idea._

 _Which do you prefer, Tom or Riddle?_

… _Riddle._

 _Why?_

 _Which do you prefer, James or Liar?_

 _Fair enough._

Closing the diary, Harry turned back to his Portions homework.

He'd managed to get out of his room without too much trouble that first night and things had progressed reasonably smoothly ever since. His new trunk was virtually identical to his old one on the outside however the inside was an entirely different story. All his things from his old trunk were stashed inside it, the only things remaining in the cupboard now being an ordinary trunk full of potting mix and his Nimbus. He'd since been working on his summer homework and reading his textbooks. He'd finished everything except potions, which he'd left 'till last out of simple spite, and had read every other book he had other than the Lockhart books. He'd gotten one paragraph into Ghouls and hadn't been able to continue. They were children's books for god sake, and not even _good_ children's books at that.

The occlumency book had been an excellent idea on Moon's part, and Harry had already started practicing. The early stages mainly involved meditation, practicing visualising dark voids, waterfalls and valleys, basic strategies to help one learn to clear the mind. Riddle had said it would be hard to really learn without someone to test his shields, but Harry was enjoying trying nonetheless. It was immensely calming, imagining oneself immersed in dark water.

He'd also begun working on the next stage, although Harry acknowledged he probably wasn't ready yet. The idea was, once your mind was clear, to use one's magic to create a strong barrier around the mind. The nature of this technique was what made it so difficult. The book had described it by likening a normal spell, for example, a levitation charm, to a straight line; a line of magic that extended to a specific point or object. A shielding charm could be thought of similarly, accept it affected a specific radius. However, occlumency shields did not extend out in a line, nor did they effect a specific point. One's occlumency shield formed a sphere which protected a person's mind at the source of their magic. Magic that effected oneself didn't go anywhere before working, which meant there was no point at which it stopped or began. Harry liked to think of it like the tide, one's shields could strengthen or fall but they were never truly gone and never really peaked. It was a matter of degrees of protection.

The book mentioned other forms of self-effecting magic such as apparition which Harry had never heard of, and something called an Animagus transformation, something else Harry had never heard of, although he'd made note of both in his diary, the normal one, not the one possessed by a short tempered sixth-year, as something to read up on later. Later, because tomorrow, he'd be going back to Hogwarts, with Ron and Hermione.

Harry paused, his quill hovering over his explanation of the potential adverse effects of insufficient or inept processing of the aconite plant before use in the wolfsbane potion.

It had taken him some time to build up the courage to face his feelings about seeing Ron and Hermione again, and even longer to separate how he thought he should feel and how he was afraid he felt, from how he was actually feeling.

The simple fact of the matter was that Harry had never really had any close friends as a child. Subsequently, he wasn't a particularly social person. It wasn't that he didn't _like_ his two first friends, it was more that he didn't want to resume the sort of relationship he'd had with them last year. He'd spent almost every waking hour with Ron at least, during his first year at Hogwarts. This wasn't Ron's fault. He had never asked for space or indicated in any way that he would like to be left alone for a bit. He had clung to his first friends desperately, basking in the acceptance and support they'd offered him during one of the most major transitions of his life. However, he also had something of a fear of confrontation, this was something Riddle had pointed out, but Harry agreed he might be onto something, which was why he was lying about being unable to write, which was really quite stupid and childish, rather than trying to change the dynamic of the relationships he'd started.

In short, he was blaming his friends rather than face his own insecurities, which wasn't fair to them.

None of this lessened the tendrils of fear keeping Harry awake and adding footnotes on nitric acid production in humans to his technically finished essay but he felt better at least having some plan for how to deal with the situation. Even if both Riddle and his intuition kept telling him it wasn't going to be that easy.

That was the other thing concerning him. Riddle.

He knew the diary had an agenda. He knew Riddle wasn't sharing that agenda. He knew this probably meant he wouldn't approve or would be actively put in harm's way by said agenda. He knew he was becoming worryingly emotionally dependent on Riddle, the snarky comments, fierce admonishments and occasional grudging praise that had begun to immerge had established the entity as something of a big brother to Harry. He knew this put him at a worrying disadvantage to the older boy. But he still couldn't bring himself to stop writing to him.

Harry had inicaially though there might be some form of compulsion on the book, so he'd tested it using a rune combination provided in _Ancient Runes Made Easy._ There was. Harry now had a strip of cloth with several runes on it to protect him against simple compulsions and warn him of complex ones wrapped around his wrist, it hadn't gotten hot since he'd put it on but although he was no longer writing in the book every hour, he still couldn't stop.

He didn't really want to.

Riddle wasn't a nice person, but that was okay because Harry didn't really feel comfortable around nice people. They had a whole way of life with rules and systems that he didn't understand. He approved of them, objectively, but he didn't know how to talk to people who didn't see that the answer to the trolley problem was obvious.

Riddle wasn't really his friend, but that was okay because he didn't really want friends.

Riddle was a liar.

So was he.

Something would happen. Harry wasn't sure what or when, but he knew eventually something would happen. And he would deal with it when it did.

I want to apologise for the recent silence. I made the mistake of trying to write a Quidditch scene and things just immediately ground to a halt. Remind me never to do that again. I'll try to just get it over with and get back to the fun stuff.

I still don't know how to get a line going across my page if anyone feels like helping me out.


End file.
